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Full-Text Articles in Law
Dinner With Andre: A Personal Tribute To Andre Hampton, David Dittfurth
Dinner With Andre: A Personal Tribute To Andre Hampton, David Dittfurth
Faculty Articles
A tribute to long-time St. Mary's University School of Law professor Andre Hampton upon his retirement.
The Mystery Of The Leavenworth Oaths, M H. Hoeflich, Stephen M. Sheppard
The Mystery Of The Leavenworth Oaths, M H. Hoeflich, Stephen M. Sheppard
Faculty Articles
Lawyers have sworn an oath to be admitted to the Bar since the beginnings of the Anglo-American legal profession. The oath serves several extremely important purposes. First, it is the formal act that admits an individual into the Bar and confers upon the oath taker the right to perform the duties of an attorney in the jurisdiction in which the oath is given. Second, the oath admits the new attorney to the broader world of the legal profession and signifies that the new attorney has been judged by the oath giver as worthy of the right to practice law. Third, …
Testing Privilege: Coaching Bar Takers Towards "Minimum Competency" During The 2020 Pandemic, Afton Cavanaugh
Testing Privilege: Coaching Bar Takers Towards "Minimum Competency" During The 2020 Pandemic, Afton Cavanaugh
Faculty Articles
The year 2020 was challenging for the bar exam. The longstanding argument that the bar exam is not a fair measure of the minimum competence of someone to practice law was cast into harsh relief and the truth-that the bar exam tests the privilege of its examinees-became startlingly apparent. Not only did 2020 kick off with a devastating global pandemic, but we also saw the rage against systemic racial injustice reach a boiling point just as we were charged with staying in our homes to avoid contracting COVID-19. With a pandemic raging, overt White supremacy on the rise, and racial …
Shooting Fish, Michael L. Smith
Shooting Fish, Michael L. Smith
Faculty Articles
Many academic legal articles begin with sweeping statements concerning the majesty of law, often noting that "the life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience" and that "the law embodies the story of a nation's development through many centuries, and it cannot be dealt with as if it contained only the axioms and corollaries of a book of mathematics." This is not one of those articles, as it gets straight to the point, asking the question that's on everyone's mind: if you're walking next to a stream, river, lake, or pond, and you happen to see …
Of Brutal Murder And Transcendental Sovereignty: The Meaning Of Vested Private Rights, Adam J. Macleod
Of Brutal Murder And Transcendental Sovereignty: The Meaning Of Vested Private Rights, Adam J. Macleod
Faculty Articles
The idea of vested private rights is divisive; it divides those who practice law from those who teach and think about law. On one side of the divide, practicing lawyers act as though (at least some) rights exist and exert binding obligations upon private persons and government officials, such that once vested, the rights cannot be taken away or retrospectively altered. Lawyers convey estates in property, negotiate contracts, and write and send demand letters on the supposition that they are specifying and vindicating rights, which are rights not as a result of a judgment by a court in a subsequent …
Urban Law School Graduates In Large Law Firms, David Wilkins, Ronit Dinovitzer, Rishi Batra
Urban Law School Graduates In Large Law Firms, David Wilkins, Ronit Dinovitzer, Rishi Batra
Faculty Articles
Two major trends have dominated the American legal profession in recent years. First, "the legal profession has seen a striking growth in the largest firms during the latter part of the last century." In 1960, Shearman Sterling & Wright (now called Shearman & Sterling) was the largest firm in the country - and therefore the world. It had 125 lawyers. By the close of the century, there were more than 250 firms larger than Shearman & Sterling had been forty years before, with the largest ten topping the scales at 1000 lawyers or more. Today, in order to make the …
Deterrence And Origin Of Legal System: Evidence From 1950-1999, Michael L. Smith
Deterrence And Origin Of Legal System: Evidence From 1950-1999, Michael L. Smith
Faculty Articles
This article offers evidence on legal systems' deterrence of acts that may cause harm, which extends law—and finance—literature comparing common law and civil code systems. Fatality rates from two causes are used to gauge deterrence: (1) motor vehicle accidents and (2) accidents other than motor vehicle. Both vary significantly across countries classified by origin of legal system. The data cover 50 years, offering evidence on evolution of differences over time. Findings for accidents other than motor vehicle are evidence on legal system flexibility, as the diffuse set of causes increases the difficulty of specifying harmful actions ex ante.